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THE 



Responsibility 



FOR 




Young Men 



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BY THE 

Rev. W. A. SCOTT, DD., 

Pastor of the Forty-Second St. Church, New York. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

NO. 821 CHESTNUT STREET. 



THE 



JjespcnaiHliig of Acting jpn 



Ij^llr 



FOR THEIR 



INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 



BY THE 

Rev. Tf. A. SCOTT, D.D., 

Pastor of the F'rty-second Street Church, New York. 




PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. 821 CHESTNUT STREET. 






Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers, Philada. 



THE 

RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

FOR THEIR 

INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 



"Give me," said Archimedes — "give me a 
place to stand on, and I can move the earth 
itself." Weil, suppose he had found a place on 
which to erect his machine and work his lever, 
what could he have done? Why, if he suc- 
ceeded in lifting our planet out of its orbit, he 
could only have sent it w r histling like a top 
through the air in a straight line to the sun. 
But have we not, Christian friends, more than 
he desired? Not indeed a material standing- 
place outside of our planet, but a much more 
comfortable and influential position upon it. 
We have institutions unknown to him — institu- 
tions more varied, comprehensive, powerful and 
enduring than he ever dreamed of. And in the 
growing multitudes of our age, and especially 
the young men of this country, there is a moral 
machinery which does move the whole world — 
a power which ought to be employed to move, 
and to move onward and to move upward, the 

3 



4 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

population of our globe in the career of im- 
provement. We have agencies to advance and 
extend the beneficial influence of science, and of 
social and political reforms, that the great Greek 
knew not of. We have a pure religion, more 
mighty than all the systems ever taught by an- 
cient philosophy, of which he was wholly igno- 
rant. No such a thing as the systematizing and 
combining of the moral and intellectual in- 
fluences of young men — of young men under 
the constraining influence of the love of Christ — 
under the vitalizing and fraternal power of the 
Gospel — was known to Greece in his day. 

It is natural and proper for young men to 
think that they will be of some account in the 
world, and that society will be in debt to them. 
And this is well — for 

"It never vet did hurt 
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope." 

Nor are they mistaken. They are entitled to 
make heavy drafts upon an enlightened age. 
And most sincerely do I hope that none of you 
who read these lines will ever find any of your 
drafts dishonoured. But that you may the better 
consider your liabilities, I ask you to reflect 
upon your responsibility for the influence you exert 
upon society. Your age, your country, your 
race, your position in the civilization of man- 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. O 

kind, and your holy religion have large de- 
mands upon you, which you must meet, or be 
for ever dishonoured before God and his virtuous 
universe. But who are young men f Different 
writers have used or assigned different periods 
to this term. Some restrict the term to such as 
are minors, or "under tutors and governors;" 
and some mean by it all who are not married. 
Neither of these distinctions pleases me. For 
some men are, or ought to be, under tutors and 
governors all their natural lives. And there 
are some who are married that are very juvenile 
both in years and experience, and some who are 
so unfortunate as never to be married at all, 
and yet die in old age. I prefer, therefore, to 
ignore the number of winters and summers that 
are on any of your heads, and to consider as 
young men all who have the great business of 
life yet to do ; and as marriage is among the 
first duties and one of the chief ends of man, 
so all who have not yet made this achievement, 
and all who are yet toiling on the sunrise side 
of the hill of life, we consider as young men. 
Practically, every man is a young man who has yet 
the whole duty of man to accomplish. 

We offer for the consideration of young men 
two propositions — one negative and the other 
affirmative. "None of us liveth to himself, 
and no man dieth to himself. For whether we 



6 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

live, we live unto the Lord ; and whether we 
die, we die unto the Lord ; " and the conclusion 
or inference is, " whether we live, therefore, or die, 
we are the Lord's" 

I. To live to one's self is to live according 
to our own judgment and after our own will 
and for our own pleasure. But as Christians 
we are to live according to the will of God. 
We admit that it is our first and highest 
duty to please him. God is our Maker, Pre- 
server and final Judge. While we live we have 
our being and all our mercies from him, and 
when we die we are still in his hands. What- 
ever, therefore, we do or leave undone should 
have reference to the light of the eternal world, 
and to the account we must give to the Judge 
of quick and dead at the last day. " Whether 
we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." 
That is, we are under a great responsibility for 
our influence, both living and dying. And it 
seems to us that a few brief and simple con- 
siderations are sufficient to awaken our minds 
to the important fact that we are responsible 
for our influence upon one another, and that 
this fact, admitted and acted on continually in 
every-day life, has a most momentous applica- 
tion to young men. At home, in earliest years, 
in social life, in business and in public affairs — 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 7 

in all the walks of society — their influence is 
both seen and felt. No one has failed to ob- 
serve how important the spring of the year is 
to our globe. It is in the spring that, in the 
beautiful language of the Bible, "every herb 
bearing seed which is upon the face of all the 
earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit 
of a tree yielding seed," bursts forth and diffuses 
over the earth a rich and varied fertility. The 
poet has well called the spring " the bud of 
being." It is indeed a lovely and charming and 
hopeful season. The skies are genial. Soft 
showers come in their seasons. The outspread 
valleys bloom with verdure, the snows melt on 
the mountains, and they are soon clothed with 
their dark green mantle. But pleasing as are 
the emotions of an enlarged heart in contem- 
plating the beauties of the spring of the year, a 
careful and well-directed analysis will show that 
the pleasure of spring rises chiefly from antici- 
pation. The spring promises " the maturity of 
summer and the richness of autumn. These 
flowers are to emit, as time rolls on, a more ex- 
quisite fragrance ; these trees are to exhibit a 
more abundant foliage. The eye sympathizes 
with the present, and the mind with the antici- 
pations of the future." And just so it is with 
youth. The growth of the bodily frame, the 
early unfolding of intellect and the first de- 



8 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

velopnients of moral feeling are replete witlk 
interest; "the buddings of infancy, the blos- 
somings of childhood and the fruits of matu- 
rity have their peculiar charm, as well as their 
appropriate character ; but it is the relation of 
the rising generation to posterity that con- 
stitutes their importance." You must not sup- 
pose, however, that you can merge your in- 
dividual responsibility into your social and pub- 
lie duties so as to escape from it. For however 
great the influence may be which you now exert 
on society, or however great it may become, 
still there is an individual accountability resting 
upon every one of you, of immeasurable im- 
portance to himself. Every one of you is en- 
dowed with a capacity to be happy, to do good 
and make others happy, that involves a tre- 
mendous accountability. If it be considered 
that the human soul is from God, and if its 
capacities, endowments, destination and dura- 
tion be taken into the account, surely we are 
prepared to admit that its salvation or perdition 
is a matter of vast concern. " What shall it 
profit a man if he shall gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul ? Or w 7 hat shall a man 
give in exchange for his soul ?" 

II. It is true that a personal responsibility 
of vast magnitude rests upon every one of us, 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. y 

from which there is no escape — a personal 
duty as inseparable from each one as his iden- 
tity and as enduring as his immortality — to 
work out his own salvation — a responsibility 
seen every day in the individuality of human 
actions, cares and sorrows. As for instance 
in our sickness and griefs. No one is born in 
our place. No one can die in our stead. And 
so every one must account for himself to his 
Creator. But this awful personal responsibility 
does not spend itself in our individuality. It is 
the rather increased by its extension over our 
fellow-men. You know that a vessel may be 
placed in poise filled with sand. You can as- 
certain its precise weight and note its position ; 
then if you take out one grain of sand its weight 
is diminished and its distance from the ground 
is increased. The same law obtains in regard 
to the heavenly bodies. Astronomers tell us 
that the annihilation of even the smallest one 
would make a difference in the position and in 
the motion of every star and planet in the uni- 
verse. The first atom laid by the coral insect is 
a small affair separated and taken alone. But 
if the coral-builders go on and lay one atom 
after another day after day, the jagged reef at 
length rises from .the ocean bed and lifts its 
head above the waters, and the angry billows 
dash and break upon it, and great ships are 
2 



10 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

wrecked against it, and seeds are wafted to it, 
and forests grow upon it, and men make it their 
homes and ply there all the busy pursuits of 
life, and the heralds of the Cross there preach 
Jesus and the resurrection ; and all this is the 
result of the masonry of an architect's toil in 
atoms from day to day — the work of a tiny in- 
sect. Or if you were to lay a straw across your 
doorway every time you go out, it would seem 
to be a trifling thing, but it is possible for 
straws thus to accumulate to such a quantity as 
to prevent your going out or coming in. And 
so the bread that feeds the hungry millions of 
the earth is the aggregate harvest of millions of 
individual hands and of millions of millions 
of individual grains of seed-corn sown on mil- 
lions of yielding acres. The gold that flows 
from the mountains, and which makes the me- 
dium of commerce and the basis of credit and 
the channel of benevolence, is dug out by the 
individual muscles and patient toilings of indi- 
vidual miners. And so also a thousand indi- 
vidual hands had to toil in grading the track 
and finishing the graceful curves of the great 
railway across the American continent before 
prices current and messages of love could be 
sent swiftly as fly the winds from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific over mountains and plains. 

You know that each separate nail and cord 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 11 

and beam and iron band and plank and timber 
in the great Leviathan ship has its place, and 
on its fitness for its place depends the strength 
and the safety of the vessel and all its precious 
freight of life and proper ty e And so the fate 
of a nation has sometimes hung trembling on a 
single thought or been staked on the issue of a 
single battle. Trafalgar, Waterloo and Sebas- 
topol tell of the results of individual courage — 
of every one's doing his duty : the aggregate 
prowess of individual soldiers directed by com- 
petent officers achieved the glory-telling victory. 
And just so it is in the great battle of life — every 
man has a great victory to win for himself and 
for society. A mighty work is to be done. A 
highway is to be opened over the mountains of 
prejudice and the sterile plains of selfishness — 
human ignorance is to be enlightened — human 
suffering to be alleviated — much agony is to be 
soothed — many tears to be wiped away — many 
griefs to be assuaged — much enmity to God to 
be overcome ; this earth is to be filled with the 
glory of God and its uttermost parts to be- 
come Messiah's heritage ; and upon whom, if 
not upon our Christian young men, is to devolve 
the honour of doing this great work and achiev- 
ing this victory ? 

As every sand has its place in making the 
mountains, and every drop its own place in mak- 



12 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

ing the ocean, and every leaf its part in cloth- 
ing the forest, and every stalk of wheat its place 
in filling the field with the golden harvest that 
is to be gathered into the barn — as every par- 
ticle of space between our planet and the sun is 
an important link binding us to our solar centre, 
and performs an important function in the com- 
munications carried on between us and the other 
members of the solar system — so is every man 
and the particles of the influence of every man, 
a link in the vast chain of human well-doing 
and well-being. Society is the aggregation of 
individualities. It is in fact an association 
organized by the Creator for purposes of be- 
nevolence. Every human being is a share- 
holder in this association — not merely to receive 
the dividends, or as a sleeping partner consume 
its fruits, but to help produce them. Every hu- 
man being is bound up with every other human 
being, and must fill his page in the vast volume 
of humanity. This is true of all ages and of 
all men, but especially true of young men in 
our day. By providence they are so placed as 
to receive and transmit impressions, just as we, 
their predecessors, have done, and as their suc- 
cessors will do. Nay, their opportunities for ex- 
erting a wide influence are, in most cases, greater 
than were enjoyed by their fathers. Whatever, 
then, may be the character of the young men of 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 13 

our age, whether good or bad, such will they 
impart to the coming age. When we are re- 
moved from living men, and the sands of the 
mountain, or the clods of the valley, or the tan- 
gled weeds of the sea, or ocean's brilliant shells 
may be our tomb, then they will occupy our 
places on the world's busy stage. Yes, when we 
older men, who are now busy in the strife of life 
and struggling with its burdens, have left these 
mortal shores, young men will be the living in- 
habitants of earth. Those whom you are now 
teaching will teach others and mould their cha- 
racter. These young men will be the men of 
business, of science, of learning and of religion 
in the years to come. As the falling leaves of 
autumn are replaced by the growth of next 
year, or rather as the leaves on evergreen trees 
are ever falling and ever growing, and the tree 
always green, so in this vast and ever-multiplying 
population of our earth we are born, live and' 
pass away, and another generation cometh. 
The infant in the cradle will soon mingle in the 
sports of boyhood, and' the growing child, 

"The parent's hope, the mother's joy," 

will soon pass into manhood, and with his fel- 
lows stamp the living world with its permanent 
characters, 
a 



14 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

III. But the responsibility of young men for 
their influence on society is great, not only be- 
cause it is thus widespread and intensely and 
without limit permeating, and, like the power of 
gravitation, running through all things, but also 
because it is immortal. We do not mean that 
men in their present physical form live always 
on the earth. Nor are human tombs ordinarily 
like those of the huge monsters that peopled our 
planet long centuries ago. We do not find 
man's physical remains in the granite and por- 
phyry of our mountains, and yet he leaves me- 
morials of his existence as enduring as immor- 
tality. Generations pass away, but man is truly 
a sovereign that never dies. The ruins of the 
East and of the West, of the Euphrates and of 
Yucatan and Peru, and of the Nile and the 
Ganges, are the debris of the arts and life of 
long-buried cities. In these solitudes millions 
once had their being. There the craftsman 
once plied his toil, the merchant accumulated 
his gains, the noble rolled in splendour, the 
sage pursued his studies, and men and women 
fe.'t their hates and their loves, their joys and 
jealousies and envyings and sorrows as we do 
now ; the king and the mighty were there, and 
armies were mustered, and the shout of victory 
and the song of triumph rose loud and long to 
heaven. But all is gone ! — alike the victor and 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 15 

the vanquished ! And are they indeed all gone ? 
The mighty dead, have they ceased to be? 
Rather live they not in the present, as the sun- 
beam and dewdrop live in the glories of the 
field ? The great and the good have toiled and 
laboured and fallen, but they still live. They 
are " the glass wherein our noble youth do dress 
.themselves." The massive folds of death's dark 
robes have enshrouded them from us, yet there 
is much of them that the grave cannot hide. 
Their great example, their high wisdom and 
their undying love of country, their integrity, 
their suffering for conscience' sake and attach- 
ment to principle cannot be buried in the dust 
and forgotten. They live in their works and 
speak to us in our libraries. They live in our 
windows and speak to us from the canvas or 
from their likenesses drawn by the rays of the 
sun, or we meet them in our saloons and streets 
in marble forms that seem to breathe almost 
with the earnest pulsations of their great hearts. 
Yes, they still live in everything that per- 
petuates and ennobles the country whose institu- 
tions they have perfected, adorned and preserved 
and whose history they have made glorious. They 
live in all that by which one generation acts upon 
its successors, and by which one country acts upon 
another. Such lofty spirits " resist the empire of 
decay." They are " the mark and glass, copy and 



16 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

book that fashion others." And when time is 
over and worlds have passed away, they will still 
live and be. Oh that the principles, the as- 
pirations and godlike purposes of our mighty 
dead might fill the hearts of the young who are 
just coming upon the stage, and gird them up 
with intellectual and moral power ! It is true 
we see them no more in their living forms in the . 
pulpit or in the senate or the high places of gov- 
ernment, but still they speak and lead our hosts. 
Yet they mould our judgments, quicken our de- 
sires, inspire our hopes. They live in our 
thoughts, and their influence enters into the for- 
mation of our character and hopes for time and 
eternity. And so long as your children's chil- 
dren shall inherit one breath of liberty or one 
pulsation of patriotism, so long will they be the 
embodiment — the unconscious but real enshrine- 
ment — of the influence of our noble and mighty 
dead, who passed this way through our world 
to "glory's morning gate." Man as an indi- 
vidual comes forth like a flower and flees away 
as a shadow. But as every man partakes of 
the same faculties, and is " in affection and in- 
tellect consubstantial" with every other man, it 
follows that as a race man has an existence 
that is richer and better, just as in the lapse of 
time individuals develop rightly the faculties 
and truths committed to their race by the great 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 17 

Creator. And to each age and race Providence 
seems to have entrusted some great truth, idea 
or principle, and historically we know that the 
race that has been the most faithful in executing 
its trust has been the most prosperous one. And 
in the contest between Python and Osiris — be- 
tween good and evil — the human race must pro- 
gress, and the true and the beautiful prevail be- 
cause they are real and immortal. Philosophy 
says, and so does Revelation, That the universe 
is the hand of the Creator put forth and made 
visible in time and space. The things that are 
visible are his reflex and image. Michael An- 
gelo expressed the idea beautifully when he said, 
" The true work of art is but a shadow of the 
divine perfections." 

The vast creation, then, is nothing but the 
beneficent effluence of the Almighty — a flow- 
ing out of his perfections in harmony and beauty. 
Human art is nothing but an imitation of the 
divine. What we call, therefore, the laws of 
nature are nothing but expressions of the great 
regulating mind of the Creator — " a living provi- 
dence perpetually manifesting itself anew." 
The ancients were so impressed with this idea 
that some of them have defined providence 
to be a continuous creation. And some of 
them even taught that the world had a living 
soul, which was its life and the source of all 
4 



18 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

order and beauty. It is at least manifest to 
every reflecting mind that the world had a 
Creator, and that he is still its Governor. 

It is difficult to grasp such a theme as Influ- 
ence, or to analyze and weigh it. It is like the 
atmosphere in which we live, everywhere press- 
ing upon us, penetrating everything; and yet 
greater than the atmosphere, because it is illimi- 
table by our present powers of measurement. 
May I not say it is a sort of tissue or superflces 
of innumerable lines extending from the Crea- 
tor's flat to infinitude. It seems a great work to 
weigh and measure planets and systems of 
.worlds, but it has been done. The Pyramids 
too have been measured — their height and 
breadth, and the number of stones and solid con- 
tents have all been reckoned up, and the draughts- 
man sets them before us with the Sphynx and 
" the everlasting palm trees" and the bordering 
deserts. And Mont Blanc has been measured 
and embossed in stucco. His very type is in 
our school-books. But who can measure the 
influence of one immortal soul upon another im- 
mortal soul — of mind upon mind? Who can 
picture forth truly to us the inner life, the 
thoughts and conflicts, of the standard-bearers 
of our race? How shall we ascertain and 
measure the strugglings of their souls until they 
were brought forth into the light of beauty and 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 19 

truth ? How shall we weigh the influences that 
formed them, or of their "schools and school- 
masters," as the great Scotchman has so hap- 
pily expressed it, and the influence they in their 
turn radiate upon us, as God's fire-pillars amid 
the darkness of our earthly pilgrimage? An 
illustration of our thought here has been sug- 
gested to me by another in the following style:. 
While a haughty Pharaoh sat upon his throne 
and hewed out monoliths and set up obelisks and 
built temples, tombs and pyramids, there was a 
young man, an exiled Hebrew from among the 
bondmen of Egypt, wandering about the foot of 
Mount Sinai, occasionally finding shelter and 
employment with an old Midianite herdsman, 
and making love to his daughter, whom he mar- 
ried (a thing which young men are apt to do, 
and which they have a right to do), that has 
outlived all the glory of Egypt. In spite of his 
millions of soldiers and slaves, of chariots and 
horses, 'and oblivion-fighting monuments, Pha- 
raoh lies buried deep in the wreck of time, and 
his resting-place, if known at all, is in the 
troubled sea ; but Moses still lives, not only 
among Hebrews scattered abroad into every 
land, but in the hearts and daily business and 
social habits, in the civil and common law and 
future hopes, of all civilized nations. 



20 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

IV. The Laws of the universe, then, 

GUARANTEE THE INDIVIDUALITY AND IMMOR- 
TALITY of human influence. All intelligent 
reading of what philosphers teach us about 
providence and the works of creation shows 
most clearly that God's hand has never been 
stretched out to create but everything was per- 
fect and good. Beauty and wisdom appear in 
everything that he has created and made. 
Worlds, and mountains, and quadrupeds, and 
rocks, and insects, and worms, are all records 
of the Creator's wisdom and evidences of the 
perfection of his laws. And his laws are as im- 
mutable as his will, and as omnipresent as his 
knowledge ; and they guarantee the perfect in- 
dividuality of every human soul, as well as its 
immortality. They are his ordinances. New- 
ton conceived of such a power or law as gravi- 
tation. He examined everything around him and 
above him, and as far as he could push his inqui- 
ries he found that his conception was a great com- 
prehensive fact — a truth. " And at once cycles 
and epicycles, and all the cobwebs of past ages, 
vanished, and our planetary system and the vast 
universe stood forth in their majestic extent, the 
whole like a vision from on high. After the 
thousands of years that the world had existed 
there was at last a correct apprehension of the ac- 
tual relations in space of the heavenly bodies. 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 21 

And by the law he announced " the great high- 
ways in the heavens have been traced." But it 
is not only in the planetary world that we find 
laws establishing their connection, but in every 
direction that we may turn an observing eye. 
When it snows the heavens shower down per- 
fect crystals, for every snowflake is a con- 
geries of crystalline grains. And when water 
freezes there is a mass of crystals, only they 
are so blended that we do not distinguish their 
outlines. And when sea water evaporates every 
grain of salt is a gem — it drops crystals. And 
when a smith breaks a bar of iron to make an 
axe or a ploughshare, its texture is seen to be an 
aggregation of crystal particles. The iron moun- 
tain and the granite hills, the quartz rocks, are 
but mountains of crystals, and so are the pud- 
ding-stones, for the pebbles themselves are myr- 
iads of crystalline grains. Nature acts, the 
philosopher tells us, on geometric principles, 
and brings out symmetrical forms according to 
fixed laws. And by widening our field of vision 
we shall find also that molecules have their spe- 
cific forms and cohere on a mathematical basis. 
And when science has travelled through the 
universe, she tells us that the molecules of which 
it is built " were modelled variously and with in- 
finite precision by the hand of Deity." And if 
the chemist meet us as we are returning from the 



22 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

observatory of the astronomer and invite us 
into his laboratory, he will show us that the 
elements of the ancients — earth, air, fire and 
water — are themselves made of elements, and 
that their constitution is made up by definite 
ratios and with the utmost precision. He tells 
us that the basis of chemistry is the ordained 
will of the Creator, and this ordained will is a 
law of numbers and harmonic relations, and 
that such law simply a great and glorious Law- 
giver. And so in the laws of light, heat, mag- 
netism and electricity we read the handwriting 
of the Creator. And in the evolutions of the 
germ from the seed to the tree that bears fruit 
we find the presence of the same beneficence or- 
daining laws and harmonic relations. The 
botanist tells us of the spiral line of develop- 
ment begun in the initial evolution carried out 
to perfection in the spiral arrangement of the 
leaves in plants ; and the anatomist finds the 
same thing in animals. The series extends in 
exact mathematical relation ; and in the works 
of the creation from the smallest to the greatest 
of living things, and from atoms to planets, we 
find one law rising above another in mathe- 
matical harmony until all cluster around and 
converge upon the eternal throne, and unite in 
one voice, saying, " Sic Deus vult" The tes- 
timony of true science is, that the laws of the 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 23 

universe are the will of its Maker. They are, 
in fact, nothing but concordances and indices 
of nature telling us how to come nearer to the 
Supreme Architect. Studied in this light, na- 
ture is not a mere collection of trees and rocks, 
and animals and birds, with man at the head, 
but of " living activities harmonious in plan 
and action." The philosopher is equally unable 
either with his microscojie or telescope to escape 
from the laws of the Creator. There is a chain 
of relations and dependencies pervading all 
created things, like the spirit of life in the ani- 
mal frame, that reaches to every part, however 
remote — that operates on Neptune as steadily as 
on Mercury, wings a sparrow and the arch- 
angel, and binds together objects the most dis- 
tant, both small and great. Astronomers tell 
us that this influence is omnipresent. There is 
no place nor object, creature nor thing, that it 
does not reach. It is a something that keeps 
the sun in his place and guides the planets in 
their several orbits. It acts on the tides and on 
the most distant stars. It penetrates to the pro- 
foundest depths of the ocean and to the most 
distant heights of the firmament. It holds the 
ocean in its bed and the huge mountains mo- 
tionless on their base. Several well-known and 
oft-repeated illustrations show that each indi- 
vidual object, great or small, inherently influ- 



24 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

ences other objects and is influenced by them. 
You know that a stone cast into the lake dis- 
places as many particles of water as make up 
its bulk ; and the agitation of the water spreads 
from the centre and grows wider and wider, and 
ripple after ripple rolls on, until the waves reach 
the surrounding shore. The entire mass, though 
as large as the ocean, receives an impression. 
Our concej^tion is lost in the attempt to grasp 
the multiplication of such influences, but the 
fact remains according to the strict laws of 
science. The same law applies to the air. The 
sound of a cannon is not lost where human or- 
gans fail to perceive it. The waves of air 
agitated fly off and circle round, and advance 
to a wider circle, and extend as far as the at- 
mosphere extends. 

V. As the whole creation is thus full of in- 
fluences which bind all creatures together, there 
is a mutual action and reaction perpetually 
going on throughout the universe ; and the 
same law obtains in the world of mind that we 
find in the world of matter. All the planets 
are not of the same size, nor at equal distances 
from the sun. Nor are all men equal, but no 
one liveth or dieth to himself. Whether, therefore, 
we live or die, we are the Lord's. 

The guarantee of the individuality and in> 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 25 

mortality of human influence is through the 
agency of thought. It is thought that is 
immortal. The greatest powers of earth are 
the emanations of mind, which is the offspring 
of the Eternal. Another has illustrated this 
thought by the following comparison, which I 
beg leave to present in an abbreviated form : 
When Tamerlane kept a gala-day at Damascus 
and crowned his pyramid of seventy thousand 
human skulls, a boy was playing in the streets 
of a German city whose history is of seventy 
times seven more importance to mankind than 
that of Tamerlane. The great Tartar with his 
" shaggy demons of the wilderness" passed away 
like a whirlwind ; but the printer of Mentz has 
achieved a benefit for all countries and for all ages 
— the types of John Faust, by which Wickliffe 
and Luther gave the word of God to us in our 
mother tongue, have a greater influence on man- 
kind than all the Georges and Louises from 
Nimrod to the French emperor. The art of 
printing is " like an infinitely intensated organ 
of speech," by which the voice of a poor tran- 
sitory, solitary man as he passes through our 
world on his way to " infinitude may teach not 
only through all earthly space, but through 
all earthly time." It is by the printing 
press, by types, sweet oil and lamp black, that 
the voice of past ages speaks to us, and the 



26 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

higher regions of literature pour upon us the 
lessons of wisdom and the melodies of poesy. 
The printing-press is, indeed, a lever whose 
sweep no arithmetic can calculate. It is truly 
astonishing to see the amount of learning and in- 
dustry, tact and talent that is displayed in the 
newspapers and periodicals and publications of 
our day. And just in proportion to the influ- 
ence exerted by the press is the responsibility 
of writers, publishers and readers. A writer not 
only spreads his influence over all his personal 
acquaintances, but multiplies the force of his 
utterances for good or evil over vast multitudes 
and through many ages. A single wicked sen- 
timent or lascivious principle set off by the arts 
of an author of great genius may poison the 
minds and corrupt the hearts of thousands in 
every succeeding age to the end of tirne. Mil- 
lions of immortal souls may owe to a single 
licentious print or profane or blasphemous sen- 
tence the commencement, the progress and the 
fatal termination of iniquity in their hearts. 
The sentiment thrown off by a daily print about 
religion or morals is picked up, produced and re- 
produced and multiplied and extended, and may 
go on multiplying itself to the great day of final 
judgment. The agents who circulate vicious 
and demoralizing prints and pictures and books 
are sowing broadcast over the land the seeds of 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 27 

an awful harvest. It is by the press the lecture 
delivered to a thousand may be read by ten 
thousand, and the loaf that a pastor breaks 
among his flock on the Sabbath may be so mul- 
tiplied by the printer's miracle-working types, 
as to feed hundreds of thousands. To be a writer 
or a publisher, then, is to assume a fearful responsi- 
bility. It is to take a stand at the fountain-head 
and wield the power that sends a great stream over 
vast continents, which stream is to be a river of 
life or of death. I fear the influence of the print- 
ing-press for good is not appreciated as it should 
be, and that the fearfnl responsibility of em- 
ploying it or of encouraging its use in the dis- 
semination of error is not seen in its true colours. 
And what I have said of printing as a means 
of exerting influence on society and of elevating 
public sentiment is true also of pictures, en- 
gravings, statues, museums, monuments, schools 
and lectures. 

VI. The summit, then, that we have reached 
by the aid of what the natural philosopher has 
taught us in our readings of the laws of the 
universe ordaining the immortality of human 
influence is this : The whole universe is a mass 
of influences, active and reflex. The constitution 
of society and of all things is laid upon the 
basis of reciprocal dependence. It is not given 



28 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

to any atom to exist segregate from other atoms. 
Nor is it permitted that any intelligent creature 
shall stand alone. By the eternal constitution 
of creation, man at his birth is plunged into an 
atmosphere of influence, every atom and ele- 
ment of which is in constant motion, and the 
law of this atmosphere is unceasing action and 
reaction. Nor is there any possible escape from 
contact with, and influence upon and from, our 
brother atoms in this vast and ever-heaving 
ocean of being. Every action draws after it a 
train of influences ; and even inertia or non- 
action, as far as such is possible, does not release 
us from the responsibility of influence. The 
space and bulk of our individual existence in 
the universe is a centre constantly radiating 
streams of influence, whether we will it or not. 
These influences are more powerful than the 
electric fluid or the mysterious power of gravita- 
tion, because they are more subtle, penetrating 
and enduring, and are freighted with a moral 
power for good or evil upon immortal beings. 
A portion of such influence is the entailed estate 
of every one of us. We cannot alienate it. 
Our influence may be comparatively small, but 
still it is an element that is never spent and 
never terminates upon ourselves. It extends to 
all w T ithin our respective circles, and again 
emanates from each point of contact as from a 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 29 

fresh circle, and is thus transmitted on, it may- 
be, in silent and impalpable but unvarying 
effects to the utmost limits of social existence. 
It is as impossible to destroy a particle of in- 
fluence as it is to annihilate a particle of mat- 
ter or divest it of gravitation. Not a ray of the 
sun is ever lost. Oceans upon oceans of light 
flow from the sun every moment and operate 
in the vast field of the universe, but not a par- 
ticle is lost. The sun's influence pervades 
everything, and yet remains itself. It lives in 
the waving harvest and in the lily's crown and 
in the smile of beauty. So it is with influence. 
Not a particle of it is ever lost. It is taken up 
into the general system, and is always in opera- 
tion somewhere ; nor is its individuality merged 
into any other, or its identity in any way con- 
fused. And now surely this individual influence 
that remains like rays of light identical, and 
operates unspent and without confusion, and 
binds us to and blends us with our fellow-men, is 
beyond conception the mightiest element of hu- 
man society, and involves an accountability for 
our influence that is appalling beyond the power 
of utterance. God is great — ineffably great — 
and as his creatures we are fearfully and won- 
derfully made. Glorious, unspeakably glorious, 
is the destiny offered to every one of you. It 
is true, we sometimes meet with young men 



30 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

who are discouraged. It is no new thing for 
young men away from home to meet with dis- 
appointments and to be depressed. It is said 
the great Lord Nelson, when a young man, 
was so desponding at onetime that he meditated 
his own destruction, but that at last, he says, 
his " king and his country appeared to him as 
an orb of glory, calling him to noble effort," 
and that then he rushed on deck resolved ever 
afterward to be a man — to dare to be, to do and 
to suffer all that man was capable of. If we, 
then, suppose a young man saying, " There is 
no light ahead, I am of no consequence, I can 
do nothing for myself or anybody else ; it does 
not matter what kind of a character I sustain, 
no one cares what becomes of me ; I shall soon 
be forgotten, and be for ever lost in the waste 
and ebb of existence; let me anticipate my 
doom — let me steal quietly through the world 
and find some corner to lie down in and die, 
unstoried and unsung, as a thing cast out and 
lost" — I stop not here to argue the short-sighted 
policy or the awful wickedness of indulging 
such views of life. I take my stand-point on 
the absolute impossibility of doing any such a 
thing. No such achievement is within the 
reach of a mortal man. It is a physical and 
moral impossibility. I hope there is no irrever- 
ence in saying that Omnipotence cannot release 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 31 

you from the laws by which the Creator has 
guaranteed your individuality and your immor- 
tality. The question then, young man, is not 
now an open one whether you and I will take 
our place amid such existences and assume such 
responsibilities. That question is already set- 
tled. He who made us and all things has 
bound us up in the vast volume of creation, so 
that there is no escape from our page in it. 
Our influence is as inseparable from us as our 
identity and as eternal as immortality. Even 
the suicide's horrid deed puts in motion influ- 
ences that will tell, and tell for ever, of his ex- 
istence and of the manner of his self-destruc- 
tion. It is impossible for me or for mortal man 
fully to estimate the fearful amplitude of the 
influence every day and every hour going out 
from every one of us upon our fellow-men. 
Some situations are the centres of more influence 
than others, but no individual is so insignifi- 
cant as to be removed from the orbit of his 
species and not to attract and be attracted. 
From the home of childhood, children bearing 
on their character and heart the impress of the 
training they have had in that home pass out 
into the world, mingle in its scenes, join in its 
doings and are met by its temptations ; and in 
their turn they become the heads of families 
and act on their children according to the same 



32 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

laws that their parents followed in acting on 
them ; and thus the original momentum goes on 
to infinitude. The mother's influence gives shape 
and colour to the destiny of her own little flock, 
and through them to that of millions more. 
The channels of influence are various and ob- 
vious. The avenues from one mind to another, 
and from one heart to another, are manifold. 
They are never altogether closed. It is a man's 
silent but ever-speaking example that is his 
true obituary. This is an epitaph more endur- 
ing and more truthful than that written by 
weeping affection on his tombstone. For it is a 
man's reality that is immortal. It is what he was 
— not what he pretended to be, but what he really 
was — that lives after him. A man's influence, 
then, is his legacy to coming ages. It will be a 
blessing to repeat itself in showers of benedic- 
tions, or a cursing which will multiply itself in 
crashes of ever-accumulating evils. If we can- 
not be released from our responsibility to God 
and his universe for our influence, we can do 
much toward making our influence a blessing 
and not a curse. Integrity of character and 
purity of principle will secure a benign influ- 
ence, while evil principles are an eternal curse. 

VII. Now these are not fancy sketches ; they 
are not the dreams of a visionary philosopher ; 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 33 

they are awful realities, and shown to be such 
by the teachings and demonstrations of exact 
science. A professor of Oxford, and one of the 
authors of the celebrated " Bridgewater Treat- 
ises," has shown that the law of physical in- 
fluence is such that not a word was ever uttered 
that does not still vibrate through all time in 
the widespreading current of sounds; not a 
prayer is lisped that its record is not also to be 
found stamped on the laws of nature by the in- 
delible seal of the Almighty. Oh it is a terri- 
ble thought that nothing can be forgotten or 
lost — that not a motion is made, not a sound 
arises, not a wave of influence flows in any 
part of the universe, but its origin, its cause, 
its direction, its bearing for weal or woe, are all 
distinctly and perfectly in the mind of the Su- 
preme Judge! And equally certain and as 
strongly bound together are the moral influences 
of the universe. On the Sabbath you assemble 
in your respective places of worship. Opposing 
sounds come in and obstruct your voice of praise, 
but it does not stop where human organs fail to 
perceive it. Like the circling ripples on the 
smooth circle of the lake, ever widening and 
spreading until they break upon the shore, 
the circling waves of the hallowed sounds of 
the sanctuary spread and widen and roll onward 
and onward ever, through all the fields of ether, 



34 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN 

through all the bounds of space, breaking per- 
adventure only at the foot of the eternal throne. 
And the voice of blasphemy and revelry, and 
impulses of evil-doing are governed by the same 
laws, and perpetuate themselves for ever. Like 
the ocean ripple, the influence of one sin is be- 
yond all calculation ; but there is this difference 
between them — the ocean ripple grows fainter 
and sinks lower as its circle widens and recedes 
from the centre. But it is not so with moral 
influences : if evil, what was a ripple at first 
soon swells into a wave, ever rising higher and 
higher, till it rolls itself into a huge, dark 
mountain billow upon the eternal shore. 

Young men, you have two immortalities. One 
you will leave behind you when you die in the 
influence you have exerted on society. It will 
walk the earth as your representative in the 
family or social circle, or in the higher walks of 
life and in the institutions you establish. The 
other immortality is your very self: you will 
carry it with you beyond the grave to that lofty 
sphere for which, I trust, your moral and spiritual 
habitudes shall have fitted you. As Americans 
and as Christians you are commissioned by the 
Almighty to exercise a vast power over a wide- 
spreading race and through many ages to come. 
In what you do now you may read your own 
epitaph and gaze on your own mausoleum.. 



FOR THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY. 35 

You cannot die. Your bodies may indeed be 
laid to rest, but your influence cannot be shrouded 
and nailed up in the coffin or embalmed and 
laid away in mummy clothes. The echoes of 
your words will be repeated and repeated, and 
will roll along and be reflected through the 
long-drawm aisles of succeeding ages. Though 
you may live on some distant island or continent 
far from the green graves of your sires, you will 
be surrounded still by living voices. The 
tongues of your sainted dead will not be lost, 
but wdll speak still, " like fiery tongues at Pen- 
tecost" — will speak to you in hallow 7 ed memo- 
ries and by glorious examples wherever you go, 
and enjoy your distinctive institutions and 
privileges as freemen and as Christians. 

Most earnestly, therefore, do I beseech you to 
consider your privileges. You are under fearful 
responsibilities. If you give a single impulse 
for truth, it will live and multiply itself to the 
end of time, and then come home with a full 
harvest of glory. Or if you influence any soul 
to crime or seduce any one from innocence, 
then you have given existence to a motion, to 
an evil influence, that may go on expanding for 
ever. Fearful is the moral mesmerism of society. 
Our very thoughts are telegraphed to the court 
of Heaven and recorded in God's registry; 
while the doings of each day daguerreotype our 



36 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG MEN. 

moral image in the characters around us, and 
make pictures which are hung up in the grand 
picture-gallery of Eternity, there to stand for 
ever, and by us to be seen and read hereafter. 

Eemember, then, what is expected of you. 
Shame not your fathers — rob not your children. 
As young men just coming into the field of 
vision, and just beginning to shine on the hori- 
zon, strive to realize the responsibility that rests 
on you. Take fast hold, therefore, of right 
principles. Let your country's good and your 
Maker's praise be an orb of glory ever attract- 
ing your highest efforts. May you be trees of 
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, and 
then your branches will shoot high and casta 
w 7 ide and beneficent shadow. " If you seek the 
Lord with a perfect heart and a willing mind, 
he will be found of you ; but if you forsake him, 
he will cast you off for ever." 



THE END. 



